I DON’T BREATHE AS the seconds tick past. My brain won’t compute what it’s seeing. Mason’s not here.
Moments later, the empty space fills with his form and a sob rises in my throat. He’s here again, except naked, sitting cross-legged on top of his clothes.
I’m stunned, speechless. He was gone, and now he’s back. My eyes trace the shape of each muscle and take in the smooth shade of his skin. He’s even slimmer than I imagined. His arms and chest are toned and lithe.
I glance away, my cheeks and neck warming at the intimacy of seeing him like this. But then my eyes move back again. He doesn’t seem to have noticed his nakedness. His head is tilted back, lips parted slightly.
I’ve seen that expression before …
It’s only as his lips kink up at the corners that it hits me. It’s the exact same expression I saw on the woman after I’d just discovered her: complete and utter bliss.
A sucking gasp is the first sound that comes from Mason, like a skindiver who’s just broken through the water’s surface.
‘Oh my holy cripes! That was freaking amazing.’ As he speaks, his eyes open and he looks down to take in his bare skin. He looks over at me, beaming. ‘No wonder you didn’t want to jump in front of us.’
With a push onto hands and knees, he crawls forwards. One hand reaches around to cup my neck. The next thing I know, Mason is leaning closer, closer and pressing his lips against mine.
My eyes blink and I let them shut, feeling the flush of heat from his skin. He pushes forwards as if thirsty for more. His lips taste of butter and salt.
Mason pulls away, still grinning, and it’s only when he sees my surprise that the spell is broken.
‘Wow. Sorry.’ His hand pulls away.
‘No, no, it’s okay –’
‘I’ve never kissed anyone like that before. It’s just … you know how amazing this feels.’
‘It’s okay,’ I try again, but it barely comes out a whisper.
His face softens and he brushes the backs of his fingers against my cheek.
‘It’s just … I mean, this changes everything.’ By now Mason’s standing, picking up his jeans and laughing when he sees that the buttons are fixed in their holes. ‘This proves that it’s a natural process, something we can learn to do.’ He loosens the buttons and steps into the legs before pulling them up.
They’re barely over his hips when he begins pacing, too full of everything to stay still. Words stream out of him, fragmented and barely formed, as if a microphone has been plugged into the centre of his brain:
‘It must be lying dormant in every human being. Waiting …
‘Now that I know how it feels …
‘… just have to escape the limits of our minds. It’s our fixed ideas that hold us back.’
Mason’s pacing has only just begun to slow when I receive a message from Mum: Taxi on the way. It’s not too late for me to catch the train home, but the storm has just broken and rain on the roof is drowning the other sounds.
A taxi pings its arrival a few minutes later, and Mason walks me to the door. He cups my head in his hands as if he’s going to kiss me again but he just grins. It’s sort of contagious, so I grin back.
‘This is so freaking amazing, Scout,’ he calls over the noise of the rain. ‘Thank you so, so much.’ He reaches around to hold me in a hug before pulling back. ‘Tomorrow. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ I say, though I’m not sure anymore what tomorrow even means.
I’m glad for the chance to sit in the taxi, tucked away while the lights streak past in the rain. Safe in the dark, I lift a hand to my mouth and allow myself a secret smile.
Soon I hear a clunk as the taxi drops into deceleration and turns off the highroad into the streets near our house. We’re travelling slowly enough to see out properly now, and as we reach the end of my street we pass Kessa and her twin sister racing towards their front porch, backpacks raised as shelter.
How very strange. The whole world has burst open, become something entirely new, and they have no idea.
I float through the front door and into our room, confused and happy and scared all at once. It’s as if I’ve just heard the high notes of a song I’m going to love for the rest of my life.
Mum’s in one of the armchairs, resting her head in a hand, her face flickering cool blue from the comscreen. She turns to me slowly and yawns before flicking it off. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘No.’ I’m still floating. No need to sit. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’ No need to eat.
Mum stands, and stretches her chest and arms. ‘All okay?’ She smiles when I nod, and stretches again. ‘Listen, Scout? You did the right thing, all right? There’s no shame in telling them what they want to hear.’
It takes me a while to return to the world I left only hours ago. Before …
Mum’s still going. ‘Once you have a place in the school, you’ll be able to make your own choices. I thought you handled it well. Sometimes you have to say what they want to hear.’
‘But I …’ Only now do I finally catch up. ‘I messed up. I thought you were upset.’
‘Nooo.’ Mum slips an arm around my shoulders and squeezes. ‘Definitely not upset. Not with you, at least.’ She lets go and sinks into the armchair again. ‘They think they have the right to control everything, but you can’t treat people like that. It doesn’t work.’
She’s thinking of Dad, I’m pretty sure. Once he stopped being useful, they sent him away.
‘I was annoyed by the way that man shouted you down,’ Mum finishes.
I hook a knee over an arm of the other chair and sit sideways so that I’m facing Mum. ‘You think I still have a chance?’
A pause. ‘Yes. I do.’
Then we go quiet, and I imagine that we’re thinking about the same things. How getting into school any other way is impossible for me. How the first step in applying for jobs is your academic record. I’ve tried already to forge a transfer from another school, as well as copy and change an academic record, but those things are encrypted and password-protected tighter than the national security secrets, especially now that knowledge is currency.
‘And don’t forget second round offers,’ Mum says after a bit.
I don’t want to keep talking about it, so I just say,‘Yeah.’
Mum sinks into a longer yawn. She gets tired earlier and earlier these days. ‘Ready for bed?’
A single shake of my head. ‘Might stay up a bit. I’ll be quiet.’
‘Don’t think I’ll hear a thing, I’m bushed.’ Mum kisses me on the forehead before slipping out for the communal bathroom. I watch the latest episode of Top 40 while she’s getting ready for bed and then switch it off when she calls goodnight.
I don’t even bother with a lamp, just sit here in the dim light reaching through the cracks in the blind from next door, listening as her breathing softens and slows. She’s asleep in minutes.
I’m alone with my thoughts again. I slip off the armchair and onto the floor, aware of the solid feel of the floorboards beneath me. Legs crossed, hands resting on knees. A steady exhale. Maybe I’ll never understand the science of it, but seeing Mason skip ahead those few seconds has brought the truth of it into focus. It’s as if we’ve discovered some strange sea-creature that’s been living in the deepest caves of the ocean, or stumbled across a universal law that explains the expanding of the planets.
Another breath, and I let myself sink. I still feel like I’m feeling my way towards a place I’ve never been, but it’s easier now. The finish line is there waiting, somewhere ahead of me.
There’s no sense of a sinkhole the way Mason described. It’s more as if I’ve been washed into a never-ending tunnel, my senses dulled and my thoughts mute as I drift. There is a place deep within me where now is the only time that exists.
For some reason I’m tired when I pull out, not refreshed at all. But I know I came closer than ever.
The difference this time, I suppose, is that I’ve begun to believe that maybe I can do it too.
Mason calls the following afternoon, asking when I’ll be there. It’s a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if ’. I’m not sure whether I should go, but I also doubt anything could stop me.
He’s still beaming when he opens the door; I imagine that he’s had the same look on his face since I left yesterday. He pulls me into a victory bear hug.
‘So I’ve been reading up,’ Mason says over my shoulder before pulling back. ‘We all have these interval timers in our brains. They’re part of the body clock network, except these ones help us create our own sense of time. Can you control the exact time you return?’ He lets go of my shoulders and finally pauses for breath.
‘Ah … sometimes.’
‘And guess what? I did it again this morning. Eight seconds. Think I’m getting a feel for it.’
Mason turns to the comscreen on the coffee table, and it’s only now that I realise we’re not alone.
Boc. ‘Longest bloody seconds of my entire life,’ he says over the top of the screen. ‘And then I copped an eyeful when he came back. Almost gave me a heart attack.’
Mason turns back to me, still grinning. ‘At least we know why she wouldn’t jump in front of us.’ He’s staring at me the same way he did last night, as if we’re forever linked. For some reason it makes me blush and look away.
‘The feeling’s mutual, Scout, in case you’re wondering,’ Boc calls, his eyes back on the comscreen. ‘No way my first jump will be in front of you.’
Mason does an about-face and starts pacing like an army cadet. ‘I know what you mean about it being gut feel. I get it now. You can’t overthink it, you have to feel your way in.’ Part way across the room, he turns back to face me.
Finally he falls quiet, his eyes resting on me softly as if deep in thought and I can’t help wondering if we’re thinking the same thing. About last night …
‘Yeah, I think you’ve got it,’ I say honestly. I’m in the presence of a guy who worked out the secret to time travel.
‘Well, what do you know,’ Boc declares, raising his eyebrows at Mason.
‘You found her?’ Mason makes his way to the comscreen and wedges a foot on the armrest.
I make my way round the back of the couch. ‘Found who?’ On the screen is the grid in real time, zoomed in far enough to see a single dot moving slowly along one edge of a long room.
‘New cleaning lady at school.’ Boc zooms in so close that we can see her travelling slowly up the screen. ‘Someone noticed that she never orders lunch in the cafe. Always brings it in.’
‘And skipped lunch the other day,’ says Mason.
‘So?’ I’m balanced over the back of the couch, tipping forwards slightly.
‘So we thought she might be illegal,’ says Boc. ‘You can tell because they don’t come up on the grid. They’re not chipped.’
I take in the screen again. The dot’s nearly at the end of the room. ‘But that’s her, isn’t it? That person’s chipped. You’re sure that’s her?’
‘Yeah, I found the cleaning roster on the school’s system. So I knew where she would be. And that’s her wing all right. Room 11C.’
I let myself sink low so that my chin and forearms are the only parts of me resting on the back of the couch, a protective barrier of sorts.
In silence we stare, mesmerised by the dot.
‘What if you couldn’t find her on the grid?’ I ask, still watching. ‘What if she wasn’t chipped?’
‘Well …’ Mason and Boc exchange a look. ‘We’d eyeball her in the real world first, make sure we had it right.’
‘Remember that skinny kid at the tip?’ Mason asks Boc, before turning to me. ‘That’s what we were doing when we first noticed your gaps. Want a drink?’
I shake my head, but can’t help following him. I end up standing in the middle of the room, anchorless somehow. ‘So did you find what you were looking for?’
‘Just that once, at the tip. The rest of the time the grid proved us wrong.’
‘And what happened?’
‘What happened when?’
‘With the person who you found that wasn’t chipped?’
‘We did what anyone would do,’ Boc says. ‘Called the Feds.’
I try to act as if this conversation is no big deal, but my blood has gone cold.
‘What?’ This from Boc.
‘Nothing.’ I clamp my lips together, but not for long. ‘I don’t know. You don’t feel guilty?’
‘Why should I?’ Boc shakes his head.
‘Not at all.’ Mason sips from the can and swallows. ‘I mean, look at you. You’re the reason we ration, so we can nurture the people who will make a difference, make sure they reach their potential.’ A pause while he sips again. ‘Like … imagine if you weren’t a citizen. You’d land in a new time with no rations, no way to survive. We might never have worked out that time skipping is even possible.’ His eyes go wide to show how crazy that would be.
My lips push together again, holding back a retort. ‘But … that only works in hindsight, doesn’t it? I mean, how can you tell who will make a difference and who won’t?’
‘That’s just where we have to trust the system.’ Mason lifts a hand as if that’s obvious.
They’re both watching me, not the screen. I breathe in. Remind myself that they were trying to catch someone else, not me. ‘Yeah. It’s just … I feel sorry for them, I guess.’
‘Well, if you’re looking for a charity case, Scout? Here’s one.’ Boc waves a hand, switching the comscreen to standby, and stands up from the couch.
‘I’m the only one here who can’t time skip. Think you can work out why?’
The three of us start meditating after that. Mason gets so excited that he does most of the talking as we go in. Staying quiet and telling Boc that he’ll get a feel for it seems to be all that’s needed from me. And anyway, each time Mason disappears, the shock and sheer mystery of it overshadows all else.
He’s able to do it every time now, reaching that place of deep focus just a bit faster, staying away a touch longer. Already he’s able to make nearly a full minute. That might not sound like much, but it’s a long time to sit through, with nothing for me and Boc to do other than watch the compad stopwatch race through its digits.
Of course Mason’s naked whenever he returns, but it’s become so normal that it’s not as big a deal as you might think. He always reappears with his legs crossed, the same as when he went in, and the talk is always about how much time has passed, how he felt. In the strangest of ways, it’s become so natural that I don’t even look the other way.
Other things have changed, too. When Boc first watched Mason time skip, he’d get all energised. He used to ask a heap of questions, but not so many anymore. These days he seems to like it less and less. His breathing grows louder as we wait, a sort of fug of annoyance growing about him the longer he takes to learn. Each second that ticks past is one second more that he’s been left behind.
Of course, I know how that feels exactly.
Mason asks me over on a Saturday afternoon about three weeks after he first time skipped. It gives me a flip inside followed by a flash of nerves when I realise we’re on our own. Boc’s on a mountain biking trip out of the city, and he’s taken my safety net with him.
‘So, I have an idea.’ Mason taps a whiteboard that’s been propped upright on the floor, and then leans to adjust the stand. ‘I got you this.’
‘A whiteboard?’
‘Yeah.’ Mason crosses his legs to sit behind it and motions for me to do the same on the other side. A grin once I’m settled, just his head visible over the top. ‘What do you think?’
All I can think to do is lift my eyebrows in a vague sort of shrug.
‘A fix for, you know, the clothing issue.’
My eyebrows drop into a frown. ‘You want me to time skip behind this?’
‘Yeah, listen. I know it’s weird. Trust me, I know.’ All I can see is Mason’s head above the screen. ‘But what do you think?’
‘I don’t know, it’s a little …’ thinking fast, ‘low don’t you think?’ I have to be careful as anything with this.
‘Low?’
It was the only excuse I could think of. ‘I mean. It’s just …’ Maybe if I talk slow enough I’ll come up with a reason not to do this. ‘I’m not even sure if I can do it with someone else around.’ Yes. That’s it. ‘I’ve only ever time jumped on my own.’
‘Well, why don’t we try?’
And straight away, I’m back with nothing to say.
‘Listen, Scout.’ Mason crawls around to my side of the screen and settles with his knees facing mine. We’re really close, but not actually touching. ‘I’ve been working some stuff out, training myself to wake at certain times of the night without using alarms. I reckon that’s the key to all this. I mean, think about it, if we can take control of our interval timers, the next step is jumping together.’
He pauses but I don’t look up, just focus on the faded denim of his jeans.
‘It’s like you said,’ Mason keeps going. ‘Jumping on your own means that you end up leaving people behind, but imagine if we could synch our return …’
When he goes quiet again I can’t help lifting my head. It gives me away with the slightest shake.
Confusion shadows his face. ‘We don’t have to go far. Just a few seconds …’
My eyes drop again. I know how dangerous this is.
‘Why not, Scout? I know you were on your own, but you’re not anymore. And this is the most amazing … sensational thing I’ve ever known. Don’t you want to play with it? Find out how much control we have? Or how far we can push?’ With each sentence he inches further into my sightline until I’m forced to focus on his face, acknowledge the hope in his eyes.
What can I say? I’d do anything to say yes.
‘I mean, what if we can find a way to go backwards?’ Mason’s peering up at me, head to one side and eyebrows raised. ‘Don’t you want to try?’
But all I can do is pull away: ‘I’m sorry, Mason. I can’t.’
Mason leans away, his head straightening and his eyes hardening as he registers the words I said.
I think my heart has stopped.
‘Can’t or won’t?’
All I can do is shake my head.
We’re left staring at each other. Mason’s forehead pinches, and he turns away.
He thinks I’ve rejected him, I realise with a breath. But then my throat goes tight. He thinks I’ve rejected him.
‘I have to go.’ There’s no air left in me, but somehow the words come out. Already I’m standing, blindly grabbing my bag. Escape is all I can think of.
At the door, I pause and glance back: ‘See you.’
‘Bye.’ He hasn’t moved. He’s still sitting in the same place, facing the space on the floor where I used to be.
At home I gulp down a glass of water, my heart still thudding at how close I just came. If he ever realises I can’t time skip …
I’ve been meditating on my own every day, sinking into the quiet spaces of my mind and feeling my way into the silent tunnel. It’s not so much about taking control of time as letting it go.
My mind is spinning right now, but I have to try. I find a place on the mat, and breathe out. My shoulders relax as I let go, drifting down until I’m deep inside. It’s cold down here, in this dull-mute place. There’s no light and no air. No wonder Mason found it difficult at first.
Mason.
The next thing I know I’m out with a rush, sucked back by the mess of today. I take in the world around me, rubbing warmth back into my arms as if to remind myself that I exist.
My eyes close at the disappointment. Come on, Scout. You can do this.
You have to.